DEATH TOKENS AND SUPERSTITIONS.

THE DEATH-TOKEN OF THE VINGOES.

When you cross the brook which divides St Leven from Sennen, you are on the estate of Treville.

Tradition tells us that this estate was given to an old family who came with the Conqueror to this country. This ancestor is said to have been the Duke of Normandy’s wine-taster, and that he belonged to the ancient counts of Treville, hence the name of the estate. Certain it is the property has ever been held without poll deeds. For many generations the family has been declining, and the race is now nearly, if not quite, extinct.

Through all time a peculiar token has marked the coming death of a Vingoe. Above the deep caverns in the Treville cliff rises a carn. On this, chains of fire were seen ascending and descending, and often accompanied by loud and frightful noises.

It is said that these tokens have not been seen since the last male of the family came to a violent end.

THE DEATH FETCH OF WILLIAM RUFUS.

Robert, Earl of Moreton, in Normandy,—who always carried the standard of St Michael before him in battle,—was made Earl of Cornwall by William the Conqueror. He was remarkable for his valour and for his virtue, for the exercise of his power, and his benevolence to the priests. This was the Earl of Cornwall who gave the Mount in Cornwall to the monks of Mont St Michel in Normandy. He seized upon the priory of St Petroc at Bodmin, and converted all the lands to his own use.

This Earl of Cornwall was an especial friend of William Rufus. It happened that Robert, the earl, was hunting in the extensive woods around Bodmin—of which some remains are still to be found in the Glyn Valley. The chase had been a severe one; a fine old red deer had baffled the huntsmen, and they were dispersed through the intricacies of the forest, the Earl of Cornwall being left alone. He advanced beyond the shades of the woods on to the moors above them, and he was surprised to see a very large black goat advancing over the plain. As it approached him, which it did rapidly, he saw that it bore on its back “King Rufus,” all black and naked, and wounded through in the midst of his breast. Robert adjured the goat, in the name of the Holy Trinity, to tell what it was he carried so strangely. He answered, “I am carrying your king to judgment; yea, that tyrant William Rufus, for I am an evil spirit, and the revenger of his malice which he bore to the Church of God. It was I that did cause this slaughter; the protomartyr of England, St Albyn, commanding me so to do, who complained to God of him, for his grievous oppression in this Isle of Britain, which he first hallowed.” Having so spoken, the spectre vanished. Robert, the earl, related the circumstance to his followers, and they shortly after learned that at that very hour William Rufus had been slain in the New Forest by the arrow of Walter Tirell.

SIR JOHN ARUNDELL.

In the first year of the reign of Edward IV., the brave Sir John Arundell dwelt on the north coast of Cornwall, at a place called Efford, on the coast near Stratton. He was a magistrate, and greatly esteemed amongst men for his honourable conduct. He had, however, in his official capacity, given offence to a wild shepherd, who had by some means acquired considerable influence over the minds of the people, under the impression of his possessing some supernatural powers. This man had been imprisoned by Arundell, and on his return home he constantly waylaid the knight, and, always looking threateningly at him, slowly muttered,—

Notwithstanding the bravery of Sir John Arundell, he was not free from the superstitions of the period. He might, indeed, have been impressed with the idea that this man intended to murder him. It is, however, certain that he removed from Efford on the sands, to the wood-clad hills of Trerice, and here he lived for some years without the annoyance of meeting his old enemy. In the tenth year of Edward IV., Richard de Vere, earl of Oxford, seized St Michael’s Mount. Sir John Arundell, then sheriff of Cornwall, gathered together his own retainers and a large host of volunteers, and led them to the attack on St Michael’s Mount. The retainers of the Earl of Oxford, on one occasion, left the castle, and made a sudden rush upon Arundell’s followers, who were encamped on the sands near Marazion. Arundell then received his death-wound. Although he left Efford “to counteract the will of fate,” the prophecy was fulfilled; and in his dying moments, it is said his old enemy appeared, singing joyously,—

PHANTOMS OF THE DYING.

A gay party were assembled one afternoon, in the latter days of January, in the best parlour of a farmhouse near the Land’s-End. The inhabitants of this district were, in many respects, peculiar. Nearly all the land was divided up between, comparatively, a few owners, and every owner lived on and farmed his own land.

This circumstance, amongst others, led to a certain amount of style in many of the old farmhouses of the Land’s-End district; and even now, in some of them, from which, alas! the glory has departed, may be seen the evidences of taste beyond that which might have been expected in so remote a district.

The “best parlour” was frequently panelled with carved oak, and the ceiling, often highly, though it must be admitted, heavily decorated. In such a room, in the declining light of a January afternoon, were some ten or a dozen farmers’ daughters, all of them unmarried, and many of them having an eye on the farmer’s eldest son, a fine young man about twenty years of age, called Joseph.

This farmer and his wife, at the time of which we speak, had three sons and two daughters. The eldest son was an excellent and amiable young man, possessed of many personal attractions, and especially fond of the society of his sisters and their friends. The next son was of a very different stamp, and was more frequently found in the inn at Church-town than in his father’s house; the younger son was an apprentice at Penzance. The two daughters, Mary and Honour, had coaxed their mother into “a tea and heavy cake” party, and Joseph was especially retained, to be, as every one said he was, “the life of the company.”

In those days, when, especially in those parts, every one took dinner at noon, and tea not much after four o’clock, the party had assembled early.

There had been the usual preliminary gossip amongst the young people, when they began to talk about the wreck of a fruit-ship which had occurred but a few days before, off the Land’s-End, and it was said that considerable quantities of oranges were washing into Nangissell Cove. Upon this, Joseph said he would take one of the men from the farm, and go down to the cove—which was not far off—and see if they could not find some oranges for the ladies.

The day had faded into twilight, the western sky was still bright with the light of the setting sun, and the illuminated clouds shed a certain portion of their splendour into the room in which the party were assembled. The girls were divided up into groups, having their own pretty little bits of gossip, often truly delightful from its entire freedom and its innocence; and the mother of Joseph was seated near the fireplace, looking with some anxiety through the windows, from which you commanded a view of the Atlantic Ocean. The old lady was restless; sometimes she had to whisper something to Mary, and then some other thing to Honour. Her anxiety, at length, was expressed in her wondering where Joseph could be tarrying so long. All the young ladies sought to ease her mind by saying that there were no doubt so many orange-gatherers in the Cove, that Joseph and the man could not get so much fruit as he desired.

Joseph was the favourite son of his mother, and her anxiety evidently increased. Eventually, starting from her chair, the old lady exclaimed, “Oh, here he is; now I’ll see about the tea.”

With a pleased smile on her face, she left the room, to return, however, to it in deeper sorrow.

The mother expected to meet her son at the door—he came not. Thinking that he might possibly have been wetted by the sea, and that he had gone round the house to another door leading directly into the kitchen, for the purpose of drying himself, or of changing his boots, she went into the dairy to fetch the basin of clotted cream,—which had been “taken up” with unusual care,—to see if the junket was properly set, and to spread the flaky cream thickly upon its surface.

Strange,—as the old lady subsequently related,—all the pans of milk were agitated—“the milk rising up and down like the waves of the sea.”

The anxious mother returned to the parlour with her basin of cream, but with an indescribable feeling of an unknown terror. She commanded herself, and, in her usual quiet way, asked if Joseph had been in. When they answered her “No,” she sighed heavily, and sank senseless into a chair.

Neither Joseph nor the servant ever returned alive. They were seen standing together upon a rock, stooping to gather oranges as they came with each wave up to their feet, when one of the heavy swells—the lingering undulations of a tempest, so well known on this coast—came sweeping onward, and carried them both away in its cave of waters, as the wave curved to ingulf them.

The undertow of the tidal current was so strong that, though powerful men and good swimmers, they were carried at once beyond all human aid, and speedily perished.

The house of joy became a house of mourning, and sadness rested on it for years. Day after day passed by, and, although a constant watch was kept along the coast, it was not until the fated ninth day that the bodies were discovered, and they were then found in a sadly mutilated state.

Often after long years, and when the consolations derivable from pure religious feeling had brought that tranquillity upon the mind of this loving mother,—which so much resembles the poetical repose of an autumnal evening,—has she repeated to me the sad tale.

Again and again have I heard her declare that she saw Joseph, her son, as distinctly as ever she saw him in her life, and that, as he passed the parlour windows, he looked in upon her and smiled.

This is not given as a superstition belonging in any peculiar way to Cornwall. In every part of the British Isles it exists; but I have never met with any people who so firmly believed in the appearance of the phantoms of the dying to those upon whom the last thoughts are centred, as the Cornish did.

Another case is within my knowledge.

A lady, the wife of an officer in the navy, had been with her husband’s sister, on a summer evening, to church. The husband was in the Mediterranean, and there was no reason to expect his return for many months.

These two ladies returned home, and the wife, ascending the stairs before her sister-in-law, went into the drawing-room—her intention being to close the windows, which, as the weather had been warm and fine, had been thrown open.

She had proceeded about half way across the room, when she shrieked, ran back, and fell into her sister-in-law’s arms. Upon recovery, she stated that a figure, like that of her husband, enveloped in a mist, appeared to her to fill one of the windows.

By her friends, the wife’s fancies were laughed at; and, if not forgotten, the circumstance was no longer spoken of.

Month after month glided by, without intelligence of the ship to which that officer belonged. At length the Government became anxious, and searching inquiries were made. Some time still elapsed, but eventually it was ascertained that this sloop of war had perished in a white squall, in which she became involved, near the Island of Mitylene, in the Grecian Archipelago, on the Sunday evening when the widow fancied she saw her husband.

THE WHITE HARE.

It is a very popular fancy that when a maiden, who has loved not wisely but too well, dies forsaken and broken-hearted, that she comes back to haunt her deceiver in the shape of a white hare.

This phantom follows the false one everywhere, mostly invisible to all but him. It sometimes saves him from danger, but invariably the white hare causes the death of the betrayer in the end.

The following story of the white hare is a modification of several tales of the same kind which have been told me. Many, many years have passed away, and all who were in any way connected with my story have slept for generations in the quiet churchyard of ——.

A large landed proprietor engaged a fine, handsome young fellow to manage his farm, which was a very extensive as well as a high-class one. When the young farmer was duly settled in his new farmhouse, there came to live with him, to take the management of the dairy, a peasant’s daughter. She was very handsome, and of a singularly fine figure, but entirely without education.

The farmer became desperately in love with this young creature, and eventually their love passed all the bounds of discretion. It became the policy of the young farmer’s family to put down this unfortunate passion, by substituting a more legitimate and endearing object.

After a long trial, they thought they were successful, and the young farmer was married.

Many months had not passed away when the discharged dairy-maid was observed to suffer from illness, which, however, she constantly spoke of as nothing; but knowing dames saw too clearly the truth. One morning there was found in a field a newly-born babe strangled. The unfortunate girl was at once suspected as being the parent, and the evidence was soon sufficient to charge her with the murder. She was tried, and, chiefly by the evidence of the young farmer and his family, convicted of, and executed for, the murder.

Everything now went wrong in the farm, and the young man suddenly left it and went into another part of the country.

Still nothing prospered, and gradually he took to drink to drown some secret sorrow. He was more frequently on the road by night than by day; and, go where he would, a white hare was constantly crossing his path. The white hare was often seen by others, almost always under the feet of his horse; and the poor terrified animal would go like the wind to avoid the strange apparition.

One morning the young farmer was found drowned in a forsaken mine; and the horse, which had evidently suffered extreme terror, was grazing near the corpse. Beyond all doubt the white hare, which is known to hunt the perjured and the false-hearted to death, had terrified the horse to such a degree, that eventually the rider was thrown into the mine-waste in which the body was found.

THE HAND OF A SUICIDE.

Placing the hand of a man who has died by his own act is a cure for many diseases.

The following is given me by a thinking man, living in one of the towns in the west of Cornwall:—

“There is a young man in this town who had been afflicted with running tumours from his birth. When about seventeen years of age he had the hand of a man who had hanged himself passed over the wounds on his back, and, strange to say, he recovered from that time, and is now comparatively robust and hearty. This incident is true; I was present when the charm was performed. It should be observed that the notion appears to be that the ‘touch’ is only effectual on the opposite sex; but in this case they were both, the suicide and the afflicted one, of the same sex.”

This is only a modified form of the superstition that a wen, or any strumous swelling, can be cured by touching it with the dead hand of a man who has just been publicly hanged.

I once saw a young woman led on to the scaffold, in the Old Bailey, for the purpose of having a wen touched with the hand of a man who had just been executed.

THE NORTH SIDE OF A CHURCH.

A strong prejudice has long existed against burying on the northern side of the church. In many churchyards the southern side will be found full of graves, with scarcely any on the northern side.

I have sought to discover, if possible, the origin of this prejudice, but I have not been able to trace it to any well-defined feeling. I have been answered, “Oh, we like to bury a corpse where the sun will shine on the grave;” and, “The northern graveyard is in the shadow, and cold;” but beyond this I have not advanced.

We may infer that this desire to place the remains of our friends in earth on which the sun shines, is born of that love which, forgetting mortality, lives on the pleasant memories of the past, hoping for that meeting beyond the grave which shall know no shadow. The act of planting flowers, of nurturing an evergreen tree, of hanging “eternals” on the tomb, is only another form of the same sacred feeling.

POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS.

It is, or rather was, believed, in nearly every part of the West of England, that death is retarded, and the dying kept in a state of suffering, by having any lock closed, or any bolt shot, in the dwelling of the dying person.

A man cannot die easy on a bed made of fowls’ feathers, or the feathers of wild birds.

Never carry a corpse to church by a new road.

Whenever a guttering candle folds over its cooling grease, it is watched with much anxiety. If it curls upon itself it is said to form the “handle of a coffin,” and the person towards whom it is directed will be in danger of death.

Bituminous coal not unfrequently swells into bubbles, these bubbles of coal containing carburetted hydrogen gas. When the pressure becomes great they burst, and often throw off the upper section with some explosive force. According to the shape of the piece thrown off, so is it named. If it proves round it is a purse of money; if oblong, it is a coffin, and the group towards which it flew will be in danger.

If a cock crows at midnight, the angel of death is passing over the house; and if he delays to strike, the delay is only for a short season.

The howling of a dog is a sad sign. If repeated for three nights, the house against which it howled will soon be in mourning.

A raven croaking over a cottage fills its inmates with gloom.

There are many other superstitions and tokens connected with life and death, but those given shew the general character of those feelings which I may, I think, venture to call the “inner life” of the Cornish people. It will be understood by all who have studied the peculiarities of any Celtic race, that they have ever been a peculiarly impressible people. They have ever observed the phenomena of nature; and they have interpreted them with hopeful feelings, or despondent anxiety, according as they have been surrounded by cheerful or by sorrow-inducing circumstances. That melancholy state of mind, which is so well expressed by the word “whisht,” leads the sufferer to find a “sign” or a “token” in the trembling of a leaf, or in the lowering of the tempest-clouds. A collection of the almost infinite variety of these “signs and tokens” which still exist, would form a curious subject for an essay. Yet this could only now be done by a person who would skilfully win the confidence of the miner or the peasant. They feel that they might subject themselves to ridicule by an indiscreet disclosure of the religion of their souls. When, if ever, such a collection is made, it will be found that these superstitions have their origin in the purest feelings of the heart—that they are the shadowings forth of love, tinctured with the melancholy dyes of that fear which is born of mystery.

One would desire that even those old superstitions should be preserved. They illustrate a state of society, in the past, which will never again return. There are but few reflecting minds which do not occasionally feel a lingering regret that times should pass away during which life was not a reflection of cold reason.

But these things must fade as a knowledge of nature’s laws is disseminated amongst the people. Yet there is—